Here is an article I just learned about. It was posted February 11th and is reporting on a speech by Putin given January 28th.
Putin Warns US About SocialismWhy has this not made more headlines?
“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.”*
Why does a Communist from Russia need to warn the President of the United States about the dangers of central planning?
What is going on here?
Where is the outrage?
.
*Of course with Putin, it's not that straight forward. The rest of the speech is an outline of Russia's statist recommendations and activities. Still, it's interesting that the reminder of the failed Socialist experiment is coming from him.
7 comments:
Beth, you bring up something that's been bothering me, so I'll give you what I sent to a friend of mine.
There are a couple of things I have not answered for myself at this time. Obama, having a couple of kids, must think he's making the world better for them. Is he unable to see the devastation that all the worldwide socializing has brought to others? Is he convinced that Marx was right, that true socialism can only happen after capitalism has generated the wealth, and the previous models didn't work because they tried to build from a pre-capitalistic base? I don't think he just a 'line my pocket' petty crook, or a 'fun job Bill Clinton'. He strikes me as an ignorant zealot, thoughtlessly dedicated to bringing in his program. If that is the case, it raises the most important question of all.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. could not do what they did without a good deal of support. Is Obama's support dedicated enough to follow him if he become that extreme?
I hope this doesn't interfere greatly with your 'regrouping'. If it does, well, reality has a way of grabbing our attention.
cheers, gary seinen
seine,
You state:
I don't think he just a 'line my pocket' petty crook, or a 'fun job Bill Clinton'. He strikes me as an ignorant zealot, thoughtlessly dedicated to bringing in his program.
I am not sure I agree with you here, but it is a feeling not a well-thought out assessment. Upon what evidence are you basing this conclusion? Obama is excellent at projecting sincerity and concern for the "underdog"--but is it more than a projection? I am not yet convinced.
Obama's actions and rhetoric appear to me to be pragmatically directed with his ultimate goal his attainment of the Presidency, for it's prestige, and perhaps it's power. Now that he has attained that position, he doesn't seem to know what to do with it, and thus he falls back on the leftist ideas which helped him progress politically.
I certainly could be wrong. it isn't an area I have research or carefully analyzed. I'd be interested in other's thoughts.
My meaning, that he is ignorant of the true results his agenda is going to bring but determined to see it through, partly because he knows no better but also a complete disregard for property rights and an elevation of the 'needy' over the productive, his ACON history. How much of his program is from his handlers and how much is his own, I have no idea, but I get the feeling his entire team doesn't check with reality before making decisions. He may well be the 'empty suit' as stated by Robert Tracinski, but does that make him more dangerous?
Will he blame others, ie. unwilling capitalists, when his programs don't work?
I actually think and hope that he's a far cry from a 'Hitler' at this time but ultimately his success depends on the commitment of his supporters, who, at this time haven't wavered and still consider him to be infallible.
I have no evidence, but I expect to see him lose his temper when things don't go as he wishes. He came very close at his first press conference.
At this stage I'm far more a questioner than an answerer but the malleability factor scares me the most. I'm afraid Putin's insincere warning will be lost on him.
Like many others, I believe that Obama is just a puppet of "the machine" - headed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
I AM outraged; I am scared. Chaos is the order of the day - when specific governors can decline to accept any part of the "stimulus package" only to be gone around by state legislators; when the President can officially announce that he is not interested in resurrecting The Fairness Doctrine but legislators intend to force it anyway under a different name; when the government bails out huge financial institutions which then fail anyway causing the government to plan to nationalize them; when due process is not observed as in the Blagojevich case and now repeating in the Roland Burris situation (I have no love for either of them, but they were/are not afforded due process), when the other side of the corruption is just exonerated (Jesse Jackson Jr.), when the Democrats get a pass for things that Republicans would be crucified for; when Americans with integrity are forced to pay for ignorance (AngryRenters.com)and illegality (millions of illegal immigrants who were given loans they couldn't qualify for); when a Republican sneezes it is cause for an investigation but when Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Franklin Raines can maneuver Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (an ill-conceived incestual relationship between the gov't and private sector transcending all outside scrutiny and usual protocol)into a personal power gain machine with impunity; when a young woman at an Obama rally the evening of the election is crying in joy saying "now I don't have to worry about my mortgage or car payment anymore!!!!" - (free at last indeed); this pretty well defines chaos for me and leaves me very afraid.
Let's add to that Obama's crippling of the defense system in myriad nooks and crannies (making Janet Reno's wall between the CIA and FBI look like thin gauze), we're poised for something deadly. When a delay of the trial of the mastermind behind the bombing of The Cole was denied, Obama had the charges dropped. Whose side is he on? Ayers? Close Gitmo, bring them here. If these boneheads (polite term) hadn't been elected, they could be charged with treason.
We are in the throes of a revolution, and it would be wise for people to open their eyes.
Sorry for the rambling, but it is my first comment. I'll try to become more succinct in the future.
Leslie Pitts
Empiricism....that's Obama's problem. Some forms of empiricism tell us that we cannot gain certain knowledge of casual events. Thus, to the empiricist, the New Deal may have steamrolled the American economy 70+ years ago but we can't say for sure that a similar policy would do the same today. Obama has, being a person of 2009, a readily available wealth of empirical knowledge at his disposal of what economic policies have worked in the past and what have not. However, because of his skeptical-empiricism, he can neither explain economic history nor us it to his advantage.
Obama's real disconnect from reality is that he does not believe in identity, or in cause and effect. In his press conference, he repeatedly let slip his concern that there will come a day of reckoning, but that it has not come yet; and that, accordingly, he must deal with what he thinks to be first things, first. Of course (he directly or indirectly admitted), no one, not even the United States, can keep spending more than they earn, but given the present emergency, exactly that is what must be done--he contended. Some day, after the emergency has been surpassed, supposedly on account of instituting the very causes that led to it, then what he views as ordinary actions, such as living within one's means and according to one's productive abilities, can be talked about and may be implemented. (Although there was not nor will there be any talk from him about one also living as one chooses.)
In answer to one question at the press conference, he rambled on about how the United States cannot expect foreign creditors to keep buying its securities, if it does not have enough tax revenues to be solvent. His worry was that the fall in housing sales will lead to falls in other kinds of sales, and to hard times, all of which will lead to the government being unable to collect sufficient taxes to keep going. He said, "you can't keep playing that game"; and then he actually said---which I have not seen reported---"the game is up (already)."
Thus, we have Secretary Clinton's obsequiousness with the Chinese leaders, and her obsequious wish to emphasize the primacy and the urgency of the economic situation, wink, wink, handshakes all around.
Long story short: the President knows the country is broke and is in panic mode to cover it up, both with blatant lies--that "nationalization" is not on the table; that what he has proposed, and is doing, is going to solve anything--and with tons of fictive dollars that will make it all go away.
In his intellectual schema, liberty and prosperity, as such, as properly defined, are of no importance at all.
Now this may or may not be what the President thinks or knows about himself and what he is doing.
It is what it is, though.
---not the previous person posting
Putin is a Statist. Chavez is a Statist. Pelosi is a Statist. Reid is a Statist. Obama is a Statist. Most of the members of the U.S. Congress are Statists. The Pope is a Statist. Ahmadinejad is a Statist. A King is a Statist. Half of the U.S. citizens want Statism. Etc. etc. Whether they are communists, Marxists, socialists, fascists, nationalists, mercantilists, Hamiltonian federalists, conservative or leftist Federalists, theocrats, monarchs, kings, queens, or tribal leaders, they are all fundamentally Statists. And to promote their agenda, they are all pragmatists.
Whether President Obama is ignorant or not, or a puppet of sorts, or shaking in his boots, he is still a Statist at heart: he believes that man’s life (the individual’s work and life) belongs to the state (whatever form of government is in power) and that the state must control the economy in some form (in part or in total). These are the principles that all Statists follow, including the business leaders and mass public who follow them. Also, whatever form that Statism will manifest itself depends completely on the context of the nation in which it is developing.
Fundamentally, either a person thinks that a man’s life and his work belongs only onto himself, that no other man-group-state owns the individual’s life, and that men must live under true (rational) freedom without violating the freedom and rights of others, or he doesn’t.
Regarding the dilemma between Putin being a communist and his statement that it was socialist policies that harmed the former Soviet Union, this is my reply. Even Statists can recognize reality, meaning the dire consequences of statist-socialist policies and programs – even criticizing them. But because of their fundamental Statist principles (man’s life belongs to the state and political power), Statist politicians will keep on applying some form of the same old Statism that keeps causing economic chaos, citizen enslavement, and ultimately, societal devastation.
If Beth will allow, from an American layman’s perspective, I write at length about Capitalism vs. Statism at my blog http://www.capitalism-vs-statism.blogspot.com/. I invite all to visit it.
Unless politicians, and “more importantly” a majority of the general public and crony capitalists who continue to follow them, change their fundamental principles from Statism to those principles of individual freedom, individual rights, property rights, economic freedom, and a Jeffersonian/Randian type of limited government that protects these rights and freedoms, Statist history will keep on repeating itself, in all kinds of destructive manifestations. A is A.
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